Peace And Quiet, Please

Neighbors Fight Street Expansion

YORK — Bobby Horne bought a home four years ago in the Settlers Crossing area of York County, planning to retire there in peace and quiet.

But now, his long-awaited relaxation is being replaced by alarm.

Horne, 57, fears his retirement haven will be tainted by noise and traffic and a wide swath of pavement - a future foreshadowed by several orange ribbons hanging from trees just beyond his property.

These silent markers, tied to trunks by state transportation workers, delineate what could one day be a bustling section of road - part of the much-debated extension of Fort Eustis Boulevard to Seaford.

"You can see a pathway being outlined," Horne said. "It starts at the edge of my property and moves off into the trees."

This $5.7 million road extension is seen as a necessity by many county officials. But the plan has Horne and other residents and environmentalists fighting for the sanctity of their neighborhoods and for the area's acres of wetlands.

The Virginia Department of Transportation has long said it has yet to pick a path for the extension.

But Horne watched VDOT workers park on his street and trudge between homes into the woods behind his house to survey the land. And he worries that the orange ribbons signify VDOT has, in fact, made a decision.

Not so, a VDOT official reiterated Monday.

The department is still considering three routes for extending Fort Eustis Boulevard, said environmental engineer Fred Davis.

It could be a year, he said, before the department chooses one of the routes.

First, VDOT must finish its environmental review of the extension. The subsequent report will lead to a public hearing on the location of the road. Only then, Davis said, can VDOT pick a pathway.

"We have to go out there and look at what is on the ground before we plan an alignment," he said. "Just because we are out there doesn't mean that's where the road is going."

Exactly where the road will go appears to be the only matter left to decide.

County officials already approved the project as part of their six-year road plan, and they have more than enough money allotted for the extension. Several county supervisors say it will help alleviate traffic on Route 17 by giving Seaford residents direct access to Fort Eustis Boulevard.

To the York County Industrial Development Authority, the project will provide an important link to the York River Commerce Park and the IDA's empty shell building.

"You can't build roads like this without impacting people," said Supervisor Jere Mills. "You have got to look at the benefits to the whole community. I'm talking easy access in and out of Seaford ... and opening up the industrial property in there."

Horne, the retired teacher, is not alone in opposing the project. Other residents and environmentalists have spoken out against it during county meetings.

But Horne and his neighbors live at the front lines of the battle.

Their Settlers Crossing subdivision sits at the front door of the proposed extension. It is this first piece of land that is most troublesome, VDOT has said, because it contains extensive wetlands.

Much of these wetlands' significance stems from their inclusion in an environmentally sensitive re-gion known as the Grafton Ponds.

But this not a tidal area most people think of as wetlands, said Davis, of VDOT. Rather, it is comprised of forested and scrub-shrub wetlands. And even the forested areas, he said, don't rank up there with other types of higher-value forested wetlands.

This ranking system bothers Ann Jennings, staff scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Richmond.

The area's forested wetlands, she said, are important for migrating birds and for the area's water quality. And the vernal ponds, or sinkholes, that are wet only part of the year often harbor rare species of amphibians.

"Given the loss of wetlands in that part of the state," Jennings said, "VDOT - or any other developer - should be looking for any way they can protect wetlands."

Jennings acknowledges that two studies have turned up no endangered plants or animals in these wetlands. Officials had expected to find nearly a dozen rare and threatened species, including the Mabee's salamander and barking treefrog.

But when researchers from George Mason University surveyed the wetlands on Sept. 6, 1997, they found no "plant species of concern," according to their report to VDOT.

A University of Richmond biologist encountered no threatened animals during several searches that same year. However, Joseph Mitchell, the biologist, wrote in his report to VDOT that his lack of findings did not prove the species' absence.

Jennings said she relies as much on these state experts as VDOT does. But even a proven lack of threatened animals, she said, wouldn't alter the bay foundation's stance.

"Just because they ruled out the presence of a threatened species," she said, "doesn't in our mind diminish the importance of the wetlands."